Photography Tips

Christmas shopping starts now, and what a great time to brush up on your photography skills for the festive season! For one month starting from today, my Simple SLR Hands-On Photography Ebook will be available at USD25 instead of its regular price of USD29.99 Simply use the discount code GREATXMASPICS2011 when buying on the official [...]

My SimpleSLR PhotoClass has always been known to provide great value for beginning photographers who may have a digital SLR but do not fully understand the power within these sophisticated tools. Most participants walk away from my class feeling empowered with new skills to create photos the way they want it, not the way the [...]

Super September SALE! This special price will be valid for the next 6 days only. USD18 for my SimpleSLR E-Book, a hands-on photography guide for beginners. Use this code: SUPERSEPTSALE11  at http://www.simpleslr.info Here’s what my readers say about my e-book as well as my PhotoClass:   One word to describe your new ebook.. “Wow”. As [...]

My SimpleSLR e-book is now available in EPUB format, available on Amazon! This format is meant for Amazon’s Kindle devices, which display the e-book in black and white. The Kindle is an e-book reader that’s growing in popularity, and e-book sales will eventually overtake those of printed books. The Kindle edition is available on Amazon [...]

I’ve just posted a new article on my photography learning website, do check it out: Using Video to Market Your Photography If you did not manage to grab my SimpleSLR Hands-On Photography Guide (http://www.simpleslr.info) the last time I ran a 50% discount, here’s your chance! This e-book is proof that you really can “Learn To [...]

I recently conducted my SimpleSLR PhotoClass for the photography enthusiasts among the staff of GlaxoSmithKline. This was a customized session because we had a mix of beginners and intermediate level photographers. Which made for an interesting session as we ran almost a full spectrum of techniques from basic foundation stuff to off-camera lighting and studio-style [...]

SimpleSLR PhotoClass is celebrating its 5th year of providing simple-to-understand photography training for beginners. Who would have thought that a humble little class which started in FRIM in 2006 (thanks to those of you who attended my classes during those early days) would still be running 5 years on, now in Taman Tun Dr Ismail. [...]

If you have been following my blog updates on my SimpleLIGHT PhotoClass, you may have noticed the ever-improving portraits that the participants have been creating. This is because with each successive PhotoClass, I constantly fine-tune and update my techniques to empower participants to create better pictures. This benefits not only the participants, but also myself, [...]

It’s an exciting time for me, as I’ve recently just completed my 2nd Weddings + Portraits PhotoClass, thanks to the eager participants who have put their trust in me to learn about portrait lighting. I’m happy to announce a new name for this intermediate/advanced level workshop :  SimpleLIGHT PhotoClass The  reason for this identity change [...]

The recent Wedding+Portraits PhotoClass was a success! Everyone went home charged up with new lighting skills… some even could not wait to put these skills to the test in their upcoming shoots. The good news is that I am now announcing the next PhotoClass on 11th July 2010!  Grab your seats at the early bird [...]

I spoke on travel and landscape photography at Nikon’s Photography Talks and Tips roadshow at Ikano Power Centre in Mutiara Damansara over the weekend. Go check it out, you might even pick up a few tips from the speakers. There are also exhibition panels featuring prints from several photographers, including mine. That’s me on Saturday [...]

Depth of field is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to the “out-of-focus-background” look that’s very popular when shooting portraits. That is half-correct because it refers only to shallow depth of field. Going to the other extreme and getting the flowers, huts and mountains (and people too) sharply focused in a landscape photo requires deep depth [...]

Landscape photography relies a lot on good lighting. Let me rephrase that… it relies on great lighting. Great lighting can be found if you know where to look, and when. Understanding the balance of light, or light ratio, between foreground and background areas will put you on the road to better landscape photography. Image A [...]

Photography at night can yield beautiful results, if done at the right time. This magic hour is called twilight, and it happens between 7pm to 7.30pm here in Malaysia, but this may vary depending on which part of the world you’re in. In some parts of the world, due to longer daylight hours, the sky [...]

I’m starting a series of (hopefully) regular articles to help improve your photography. I’ll start with the topic of lighting, which is crucial to photography. Photography is very much about using light. Very often, we take pictures without planning ahead. With digital photography, the temptation is to shoot first, then review the picture to see [...]

The RAW format is a digital photographer’s friend. If you shoot for commercial purposes (eg. to sell your images to a stock image library) shooting in RAW allows you to squeeze every single drop of quality from your shots. RAW or JPEG? Depending on which format you choose, the image takes a slightly different route [...]

Histograms are like road maps. You need them in order to see where you’re going. Without them, you’re just guessing. Ok, I suppose with some experience you can get a pretty accurate guess. But if you’re a perfectionist like me, you’d feel way more comfortable if you knew you nailed the shot with the perfect [...]

Ahh…wide angle photography, probably one of the easiest types of photo to take; but also one of the hardest to excel at. Have you ever tried to cram 30 people into a single photograph? You’d try to stack them, have some of them on the floor or even ask some of them at the back [...]

Assuming the ISO setting is constant, correct exposure is controlled by a combination of aperture and shutter speed. In Program/Auto mode The camera will choose this combination for you. In Aperture Priority mode You set the aperture and the camera will set the shutter speed based on your choice of aperture. In Shutter Priority mode [...]

For simplicity, we can refer to lenses with short focal lengths (less than 50mm) as wide-angle lenses. Lenses with longer focal lengths (more than 50mm) are called telephoto lenses. Zoom lenses offer a range of focal lengths in a single lens for convenience. Wide-angle lens Focal length: 28mm Standard lens Focal length: 50mm Telephoto lens [...]

On consumer digital cameras, the terms optical zoom and digital zoom are common. When shopping for a digital camera, ignore the digital zoom. What you should look for is the optical zoom capability, because what is captured using optical zoom is what the lens actually sees. Digital zoom is basically using in-camera software to enlarge [...]

The ISO rating refers to the sensitivity of the media used to capture the photos. In film-based cameras The ISO rating refers to the film’s sensitivity. Lower ratings like ISO100 mean that the film is less sensitive (needing more light), but able to produce photos that contain less grain and more saturated colors. In digital [...]